Naughty or nice?

A challenge combo today — Christmas Kickstart is all about cats and dogs this month and We Love Stamping wants to see Christmas Critters.

I’ve combined a fun Santa set with one of the Katzelkraft dogs. Santa is definitely amused, I think wee kiddo is telling him what her pet pooch would like for Christmas — unlimited treats and a sparkly collar, perhaps? She’s counting them off on her fingers though so perhaps he’s the demanding type! 

The set features a decapitated Santa 😱. It’s OK though, he comes with three different swappable heads so you can choose neutral, suprised or jolly Santa as well as there being an assortment of kids with different expressions. It’s a perfect set if you like to play with the masking technique. I thought the dog’s pose was perfect as well, he can just reach to put his paws on Santa’s knee!

Colouring is a combination of Copics and coloured pencils and the washi tape (six in a tub from Poundland) has been in my stash since 2017. That probably tells you how often I use washi but it was useful here as I’d stamped off centre and needed something to balance things out! The words were heat embossed and have two layers of cardstock behind them so they’re slightly raised and that’s about it.

Stamps:
Santa Claus is Coming to Town (Sweet November Stamps)
Les Chiens (Katzelkraft, no longer with us)

Ink: 
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Graphite Black)
Versamark

Paper:
Bristol board, smooth black

Other:
Coptic markers
Coloured pencils
Detail white embossing powder
Washi tape
Coloured pencil (pale pink)
Glossy Accents by Ranger
Tomato paste tube metal
White paint pen by Posca

Thanks for stopping by! You can find details of both challenges by clicking the graphics below:

Link in the chain - October

 It's the second of the month which, as ever, means it's reveal day over at Card Chain Challenge.

Mine went to the lovely Hilary this time. As it didn't have to go through  the airmail system, I went a little bit more dimensional and indulged the fist thing that sprang into my head when I saw that crepe was one of the product or technique options by making flowers.

I've actually crammed in more options that usual this time! I used the colour palette, the theme of fall and both the crepe and string block stamping from the product or technique options.

I wound crochet thread round a small acrylic block, stamped repeatedly in one direction to make a strip then turned the block and stamped again to make a little grid pattern. It looks a bit like a cheesecloth or hessian fabric, I think!

The flowers are made by die cutting small circles of crepe paper, stretching them slightly and pinching the base to make petal shapes before gluing to a base. I inked the edges and added die cut centres.

Stamps:
Enjoy Quotes (Katzelkraft, no longer with us)

Paper:
Bristol board
Heavy crepe
Dark brown

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent chocolate, Pearlescent Sky Blue)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Vintage Photo)
Adirondack by Ranger (Sunset Orange)

Other:
Circle dies (Spellbinder)
Leaves dies (Impression Obsession, no longer with us)
Christmas Roses dies (Sue Wilson/Creative Expressions)
Crochet thread
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by! Come and join us in spreading some hand made fun around the globe, there are a few more days to sign up for the November chain!

Autumn colours

Something rather lovely happened in our little town a couple of months ago. What started life as a "craft swap dresser" in a shop that sold fabric, hand sewn gift items and ran sewing workshops has become a shop in its own right. Three days a week, you can have a browse through pre-loved crafty items. The idea is to give unwanted things a new home so all the items are donated and they're sold on at very low prices, basically just to cover the running costs of the shop. There's fabric, yarn, papercraft goodies, books, patterns, artist materials - nothing is guaranteed and anything is possible! 

Last week I got an A4 stamp set (the sort that comes packaged with a magazine) and a Versafine Clair ink pad for the princely sum of 50p each. This is my first play with a couple of the stamps from the set. I thought they'd be perfect for the We Love Stamping challenge theme of autumn colours this time and then completely missed the deadline — oops!

Courtesy of some basic masking, the rather handsome fox is sitting in front of an oak bough with a ribbon wound through it. On toned grey paper, I used a base layer of Copic colouring and then used pencils on top.

I tried something different with the matting — I cut a square out of the centre of the green mat and then used a stylus to trace the edge of that aperture into the image panel. I quite like the effect.

Stamps:
Wild and Free (magazine freebie/Practical Publishing)

Paper:
Strathmore Toned Grey
Green DCWV
Cream

Ink: Brilliance by Tsukinko (Pearlescent Chocolate)

 Other:
Copic markers
Coloured pencils
Square dies (Presscut)
Perfect Layers rulers

Thanks for stopping by!

A Gothic Christmas

Jo and her October elf, Carol, set a challenging challenge at Christmas Kickstart this month: Gothic Christmas! You wouldn't believe how many different ideas I played with and ultimately rejected. In the end I've combined with the Die Cut Divas who want to see shaped cards this month.

Gothic architecture seemed like it might offer some inspiration. Unusually for me I've gone for a sort of hybrid approach here and included some imagery printed from the computer. I found some lovely fantasy stained glass images from an Etsy seller (here) and after playing with the idea of making some of the circular images into baubles (I might come back to that!) I returned to the initial window idea as this is such a classic gothic shape. I also decided candles can be quite a gothic element so added a chunky church style one with some winter greenery.

The mat and the card itself are hand cut (I basically eyeballed and pencilled in the border round the printed image after cutting that out). I decided I wanted a bit of texture - that got added by rubbing a ball tool over the card on an embossing folder and moving it around pretty randomly.

The candle and fir branches are die cut, the ivy is fussy cut from another window image and I've added some Stickles and Wink of Stella to the flame and Glossy Accents to the jewelled bits of the frame. The colours are richer in real life, I think maybe the amount of black confuses the camera!

Stamps: Compliments of the Season (Waltzingmouse Stamps, no longer with us)

Paper:
Cryogen white
Black

Ink: 
Versamark by Tsukineko
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Barn Door, Pine Needles, Antique Linen)

Other:
Gold detail embossing powder
Fantasy Stained Glass digital images (Old World Pages on Etsy)
Candle die (Elizabeth Craft Designs)
Stickles (Candy Cane)
Brickwork 3D embossing folder (Tim Holtz/Sizzix)
Glossy Accents
Spica glitter pen (green)
Wink of Stella (clear) 

Thanks for stopping by!

Penny pusher!

I’m combining a few challenges today — this week’s mixed media challenge at Splitcoast (here) is an intriguing technique that produces a sort of wonky grid by pushing a coin with a pencil. It made me think of the slightly off-square pastries in the current photo inspiration challenge at Time Out and I made it a trio by using a “thank you” sentiment to fit another Splitcoast challenge.

As well as the pastries at Time Out, I took inspiration from the orange, yellow, beige and brown colours and the fluted outline of pattypan squash always makes me think of a flower!

The sunflower and leaf sprays were in my bits box, the background piece had the grid filled in with watercolour and Copic markers, the pencil lines were traced over with a fineliner and the cross over points have little copper gel pen details.

Stamps: Enjoy quotes (Katzelkraft, no longer with us)

Paper: Bristol board

Ink: Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate) 

Other:
Copic markers
Watercolours
Fineliner
Copper gel pen
Sunflower Serenade Dies (Spellbinder) 
Fresh Foliage die (Memory Box)

Thanks for stopping by!

Poinsettia and snowflakes

I’m managing to play early in the month for CAS Christmas this time, I might even manage another one later! The theme this time is poinsettia. I had most of this made yesterday but it was lacking something. Today's featured stamper challenge at Splitcoast gave me the final idea and I added a few die cut snowflakes for extra interest and am now happier with it.

I’ve had this Penny Black stamp set for at least a couple of years and have only just opened the packaging — better late than never, eh? The poinsettia was stamped twice, fussy cut and layered up. I used a gold acrylic paste for the centre and once each little blob had skinned over but not thoroughly hardened, I pressed down with a ball stylus to make little dimples.

A debossed frame and a simple sentiment strip finish it off. The strip is slightly curved.

Stamps: 
Wonder (Penny Black Transparent)
Bright Season (Waltzingmouse Stamps, no longer with us)

Paper: Cryogen white

Ink: 
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black) 
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Ivy)

Other: 
Zig Clean Colour marker (red) 
Coloured pencils 
Gold acrylic paste 
Snowflake die (Waltzingmouse Stamps, no longer with us) 
Labels dies (Tim Holtz/Sizzix) 
Double stitched rectangle dies (Moonstone) 
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by! 

Link in the chain — September

It’s time for the reveal of the Card Chain Challenge cards that flew around the globe for September. There were 29 players this time and lots of lovely different takes on the options — one of the great things about the reveal post is seeing so many styles and approaches to the same set of prompts all in one place!

For some reason I really struggled this month. My first effort (which took up an entire crafty day) ended up in the bin after I slept on it and decided nope, I still hated it! So, unusually for me I ended up with only the colour palette of peony, scarlet and plum (although I guess my little butterflies might count as tone on tone).

I didn’t have a suitable pink ink so I scribbled a watercolour pencil onto a piece of acetate and smooshed the background with that. The butterfly is heat embossed and coloured with a mix of Zig Clean Colour and water colour pencils. The antennae are hand drawn as there was no way I was going to attempt fussy cutting those!

A little scatter of clear sequins finished things off 

Stamps: Wings (Darkroom Door)

Paper: Watercolour

Ink: 
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)
Memories (Soft Rose)

Other:
Stitched rectangle A6 size die (Paper Rose)
Water colour pencils
Zig Clean Colour marker
Clear iridescent sequins
Detail embossing powder (black)
Fineliner 

There are still a few days to sign up for the next chain if you would like to join the fun:

Woodland greetings

The CAS Christmas challenge for September is all about woodland critters — I'm just managing to sneak in before month end!

This card ended up taking a very long time to make — nothing to do with the card itself, everything to do with the fact I cut a mask for a stamp (pine cone) and then absolutely could not find the stamp I'd just used. Don't you just hate it when that happens?! After about an hour of searching I gave up and went with just the branches - our squirrel friend will have to keep searching for his Christmas lunch!

Simple stamping, colouring and a few sequins here, nothing fancy. I did add a bit of glitter pen to some of the pine needles for a bit of festive sparkle. The sweet little squirrel is definitely a red — he has those tufty ears that the greys lack.

Stamps:
Squirrel surprise (Carabelle Studio, no longer with us) 
Pine Branch Small and Merry Christmas (Lesia Zgharda)

Paper: Cryogen white

Ink:
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Coffee Bean, Pearlescent Ivy)
Memento Luxe by Tsukineko (Love Letter)

Other:
Copic markers
Coloured pencils
Clear iridescent sequins
Spica glitter pen (green)
Fineliner
Pan Pastel (Pthalo green tint)
Corner Chomper

Thanks for stopping by!

An autumn birthday

I'm combining a few challenges today. Retro Rubber has a tic tac toe board and I really wanted to play along with this lovely stamp, using the splatter/leaves/kraft row of the board. The stamp has too much fine detail to give a good impression on anything textured and kraft inevitably has a bit too much, even if you use a stamping platform and have a few goes at it. I eventually settled for stamping on smooth and framing in kraft.

We Love Stamping has a trees and leaves theme this month so this is my second entry there and the current challenge at Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers is all about leaves (sorry girls, no snark this time!).

I kept this pretty simple as it's for my brother and like most of the men I make cards for, he doesn't really go in for a lot of "doodads". Stamped, coloured with markers, masked and then ink blended some Distress round the leaves and finished with some splattered ink in the same colour.  

Stamps:
Oak Branch (Beeswax stamps, I've had mine since 2013)
Essential Messages (Hero Arts, retired)

Paper:
Bristol board
Kraft

Ink:
Adirondack dye ink by Ranger (Espresso)
Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Tumbled Glass) 
Brilliance by Tsukineko (Pearlescent Chocolate)

Other:
Happy Stamp n Cut (Hero Arts)
Copic markers
Stitched square frame dies (Paper Rose) 

A robot celebration

I'm not typically a sticker user but recently the lovely Jo at Dotty Pudding sent me a few to play with, including a couple of cute robots. This week I was struggling to come up with an idea for a friend’s birthday card — remembering that her academic research includes software for robotics at about the time I moved Jo's card to a new spot gave me my eureka moment.

The flow chart elements (computer generated) are a riff on something in one of our friend's research papers (yes, I went looking for extra inspiration!), background elements are a circuit board stamp; Jo’s cute robot is part of a set she got here. He’s raised up a little with some cardstock scraps. 

I used up a few extra stars left over from the tomato paste tube embellishments I cut recently for the Die Cut Divas "recycle" challenge (on this card) so I'm linking up again there. They form part of the celebratory explosion of shiny things (nail art gems being the others).

Stamps: Circuit board backgrounder (Cornish Heritage Farms, no longer with us)

Paper: Cryogen white

Ink: Tim Holtz Distress ink by Ranger (Rusty Hinge)

Other:
Robot sticker
Fineliner
Tomato paste tube metal 
Confetti die (Mama Elephant)
Nail art gems
Computer generated text

Thanks for stopping by!